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Note:: Descriptions of the newspapers came from Suzanne Ellison's Historical Directory of Newfoundland and Labrador Newspapers
(http://www.library.mun.ca/cns/nlnews/)
Issues on the DAI are : 15 July 1833 to 30 June 1890

Description:
The Patriot began publication in the same year the Newfoundland legislature was established.
It was supported in the beginning by several individuals, possibly including John Valentine
Nugent and James Douglas.(42) In its prospectus, the proprietors pledged "The Patriot will be
a terror to evil doers ... All the acts of the Executive, and of the Legislature, will be
critically examined and commented upon with freedom."(43) In the summer of 1835, editor
R. J. Parsons was sentenced to a three months prison and was fined 50 pounds for contempt of
court by the unpopular Judge Boulton because Parsons refused to reveal the identity of the
author of the following article that appeared in April of that year:

Beneficial effects of hanging illustrated! -- We understand that a lecture was delivered in the
Courthouse yesterday [by Judge Boulton] ... on the very great benefits which hanging the people
confers upon society, arising no doubt from its sedative effects upon the human system which is
to be uninitiated, are truly astonishing!
The case attracted the attention of the press in England and North America and a fund was set up
to raise money for Parsons' release. Upon his release in September 1835, he became the sole
proprietor of the Patriot. Parsons continued to oppose Boulton until the judge was dismissed
from office in 1838.

A Liberal Protestant, Parsons was sympathetic to the Irish Catholic population and the Patriot
provided wide coverage of Catholic and Irish news. When Bishop Fleming died, the paper was published
with black borders (July 20-27, 1850). ThePatriot contained more domestic news than its predecessors
as well as foreign news, legislative proceedings, shipping news, "columns for the ladies," and
long-winded letters.

The Patriot disagreed with nearly all of its contemporary newspapers at one time or the other.
It dismissed the Times as being unworthy of recognition: "It is not our wont to bestow notice
on the Times; the character of that journal is too mean and its supporters confined to a circle
too narrow to entitle them to the slightest consideration." The Patriot was generally well disposed
toward the Newfoundlander, but noted: "we wish the editor would think more of John Kent and
Newfoundland, and less of Daniel O'Connell and the Emerald Isle." Parsons accused former supporters
John Kent and and John Valentine Nugent of disloyalty when they started their own paper, the short-lived
Newfoundland Vindicator which tried to replace the Patriot as the House of Assembly printer and reporter.
The Patriot's most bitter rival for several decades was Henry Winton's Conservative Public Ledger, which
Parsons early referred to as "the Bigot's Banner" (Dec. 23, 1834). When Winton died, the Patriot announced,
"The editor of the Ledger lived long enough to see the utter prostration of the politics he advocated so
stoutly but so insincerely and of the party he defended so boldly. Let him rest!" (Jan. 22, 1855).

Parsons outlived Winton for nearly 30 years and sat as a Liberal in the House of Assembly from 1848 to 1852
and from 1855 to 1874. He did not adhere strictly to party lines and never hesitated to criticize members of
his own party in thePatriot. Parsons was one of the major proponents of Responsible Government, and published
a series of editorials explaining its advantages in the summer of 1850. He opposed Confederation beginning in
1862 and supported the railway. Near the end of his life, he approved of the fact that party politics seemed
to be on the wane. In the seven years it continued to publish after Parson's death in 1883, the Patriot declined,
but still managed to snipe at the Thorburn administration and two fledgling newspapers, the Evening Mercury
and the Evening Telegram

Place of publication: St. John's.Began publication: July 15, 1833.Latest issue located: June 30, 1890.